Supreme Court panel calls Zahira a liar

In a serious dent to Best Bakery case key witness Zahira Sheikh's credibility, a Supreme Court-appointed committee has indicted her as a "self-condemned liar" falling to "inducements" by "certain persons" to give "inconsistent" statements during the trial of the case.

A bench comprising Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice H K Sema opened the sealed report and read out the three main conclusions of the committee headed by Supreme Court Registrar General B M Gupta.

At the same time, the committee gave a clean chit to social activist Teesta Setalavad of the charges of inducement levelled against her by Zahira.

The court, on January 10 this year, had referred the matter for inquiry on being faced with the flip-flops of Zahira much to the embarrassment of her one time protector and social activist Setalavad.

The bench, after glancing through the over 150-page report, said that the committee has come to the conclusion that there was inducement given to Zahira by certain persons and that there were inconsistencies in her statements.

The court made it clear that it has not accepted the report and sought the opinion of the counsel for both Zahira and Setalavad in regard to 'acceptability' of the report and posted the matter for further hearing on October 24.